Diffusion in referendum campaigns : the case of EU constitutional referendums

The problem of cross-case influences is crucial in the analysis of social phenomena. Is a referendum held in a state entirely a ‘domestic’ event? No work has applied diffusion theories to the study of referendum campaigns. In this paper, I show diffusion effects among the 2005 Constitutional Treaty referendums. Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg used the referendum method to ratify the European Constitution. Based on 85 interviews with campaigners in all four countries, I find that campaign arguments and strategies were not always homegrown. However, such diffusion is not automatic and depends on diffusion channels

Diffusion of the Italian social media campaign against smoking on a social network and YouTube

Introduction Recently, the Italian Ministry of Health developed a health prevention campaign against tobacco smoking entitled "Ma che sei scemo? Il fumo fammale" (Are you stupid? Smoking is bad). The aim of this study was to evaluate the diffusion of the ministerial campaign by analyzing data from two web platforms, Facebook and YouTube. Method The study evaluated the dissemination of the campaign using the number of users reached, interactions and the interaction index (interactions/users reached) on the web platform Facebook and YouTube. A qualitative analysis of the text comments left by the users was also carried out. Result The average number of interactions on Facebook was 6.087 and 400 for YouTube while the total views were 356.967 for Facebook and 174.763 for YouTube. The interaction index was very low for both platforms, between 0 and 1%. A total number of 156 comments were obtained on Facebook and 37 on YouTube, most of which were negative, or comments not related to the campaign. Conclusion The Italian campaign had low diffusion on the web platforms investigated. Evidence-based public health interventions can play a central role in the prevention field but must be based on elements of scientific effectiveness. Further research should analyze the effects of social media campaigns on direct health related outcomes

Hashtag Activism: Exploring The Church Must Vote Campaign in Nigeria

Socio-political activism and its relationship with digital media diffusion is an on-going subject of considerable debate among observers and scholars globally. This work creates a research trajectory on Nigeria by investigating the contributions of social media in the implementation of The Church Must Vote campaign. It examines the effects of connective action and clicktivism on political mobilization and evaluates how Christians used social media to increase their civic vitality during the 2019 general elections. A total of 6,951 online content, including 42 YouTube videos posted by the users of the hashtag, #thechurchmustvote, were explored via social networking analysis. Findings show that social media played a significant role in the success of the campaign and served as education channels to advise Christians on the need to participate in the elections. The impressive outcome elicits the recommendation that Nigerians should consider hashtag activism or clicktivism as a valuable political engagement system

Hashtag Activism: Exploring The Church Must Vote Campaign in Nigeria

Socio-political activism and its relationship with digital media diffusion is an on-going subject of considerable debate among observers and scholars globally. This work creates a research trajectory on Nigeria by investigating the contributions of social media in the implementation of The Church Must Vote campaign. It examines the effects of connective action and clicktivism on political mobilization and evaluates how Christians used social media to increase their civic vitality during the 2019 general elections. A total of 6,951 online content, including 42 YouTube videos posted by the users of the hashtag, #thechurchmustvote, were explored via social networking analysis. Findings show that social media played a significant role in the success of the campaign and served as education channels to advise Christians on the need to participate in the elections. The impressive outcome elicits the recommendation that Nigerians should consider hashtag activism or clicktivism as a valuable political engagement system

Voting and Peer Effects: Experimental Evidence from Mozambique*

Voter education campaigns often aim to increase voter particpation and political accountability. We follow randomized interventions implemented nationwide during the 2009 Mozambican elections using a free newspaper, leaflets, and text messaging. We investigate whether treatment effects were transmitted through social networks (kinship and chatting) and geographical proximity. For individuals personally targeted by the campaign, we estimate the reinforcement effect of proximity to other targeted individuals. For untargeted individuals, we estimate the diffusion of the campaign depending on a proximity to targeted individuals. We find evidence for both effects, similar across the different treatments and across the different connectedness measures. We observe that the treatments worked through the networks by raising the levels of information and interest about the election, in line with the average treatment effects of voter education on voter participation. We interpret this result as a free riding effect, likely to occur for costly actionsInternational Growth Centre, Foundation Open Society Institut

Brokering Votes With Information Spread Via Social Networks

Throughout much of the developing world, politicians rely on political brokers to buy votes prior to elections. We investigate how social networks help facilitate vote-buying exchanges by combining village network data of brokers and voters with broker reports of vote buying. We show that networks diffuse politically-relevant information about voters to brokers who leverage it to target voters. In particular, we find that brokers target reciprocal voters who are not registered to their party and about whom they can hear more information through their social network. These results highlight the importance of information diffusion through social networks for vote buying and ultimately for political outcomes

When Celebrities Speak: A Nationwide Twitter Experiment Promoting Vaccination in Indonesia

Celebrity endorsements are often sought to influence public opinion. We ask whether celebrity endorsement per se has an effect beyond the fact that their statements are seen by many, and whether on net their statements actually lead people to change their beliefs. To do so, we conducted a nationwide Twitter experiment in Indonesia with 46 high-profile celebrities and organizations, with a total of 7.8 million followers, who agreed to let us randomly tweet or retweet content promoting immunization from their accounts. Our design exploits the structure of what information is passed on along a retweet chain on Twitter to parse reach versus endorsement effects. Endorsements matter: tweets that users can identify as being originated by a celebrity are far more likely to be liked or retweeted by users than similar tweets seen by the same users but without the celebrities' imprimatur. By contrast, explicitly citing sources in the tweets actually reduces diffusion. By randomizing which celebrities tweeted when, we find suggestive evidence that overall exposure to the campaign may influence beliefs about vaccination and knowledge of immunization-seeking behavior by one's network. Taken together, the findings suggest an important role for celebrity endorsement.Comment: 55 pages, 13 tables, 6 figure

Studying Paths of Participation in Viral Diffusion Process

Authors propose a conceptual model of participation in viral diffusion process composed of four stages: awareness, infection, engagement and action. To verify the model it has been applied and studied in the virtual social chat environment settings. The study investigates the behavioral paths of actions that reflect the stages of participation in the diffusion and presents shortcuts, that lead to the final action, i.e. the attendance in a virtual event. The results show that the participation in each stage of the process increases the probability of reaching the final action. Nevertheless, the majority of users involved in the virtual event did not go through each stage of the process but followed the shortcuts. That suggests that the viral diffusion process is not necessarily a linear sequence of human actions but rather a dynamic system.Comment: In proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Social Informatics, SocInfo 201

Blueprint for the Dissemination of Evidence-Based Practices in Health Care

Proposes strategies for better dissemination of best practices through quality improvement campaigns, including campaigns aligned with adopting organizations' goals, practical implementation tools and guides, and networks to foster learning opportunities